Texas New Mexico Area, November 1957November 1957

On November 6, 1957, an Air Policeman at Las Cruces Air Force Station in New Mexico saw a bright light in the sky changing color from silver to red. The object appeared roughly 45 to 58 degrees above the horizon in the southwest direction. It seemed to be rotating and descending on a southwest heading. The witness watched it for about twenty minutes until it faded just above the horizon.

The same evening, other observers reported similar sightings across a wide area. A woman at a Ground Observer Corps post near Sunshine, New Mexico saw a matching object at the same time. A U.S. Border Patrol officer near Fabens, Texas, about 20 miles south-southeast of El Paso, reported seeing an object fitting the same description. That same night, another similar sighting was reported over Midland, Texas. Given the consistent descriptions, times, and reliability of the witnesses spread across the Texas-New Mexico region, the Air Force concluded that "there was very definitely and unidentified flying object" visible that evening, though no conclusions could be drawn about its type or origin.

The case file notes that Venus was particularly prominent and bright in the evening sky at that time, and contemporary newspaper articles and astronomy journals had been commenting on it. The file also includes a scientific article about Venus and other visible celestial objects for November 1957. However, the official record stops short of attributing the sightings to the planet. The Air Force evaluation was marked "unknown." The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives across 13 pages of microfilm.